Are you scared of the Halloween clean-up?

We hope that you have a great Halloween with the kids trick-or-treating, carving pumpkins into jack-o’-lanterns, attending or hosting Halloween parties and lighting bonfires.  It is a fun time of year but can also be a messy one for your house!

We have compiled a list of cleaning tricks and treats to help you solve the stickiest and scariest cleaning problems. Enjoy our seasonable guide.

Pumpkin stains on floor and carpet

Carving pumpkin is not only a hard thing to do, but also a very messy one. If you decide to do everything in your kitchen, the best tip would be to lay down a newspaper under the pumpkin. This would make the cleaning much easier and less tricky. 

If you have pumpkin stains on the floor or the carpet, we have a solution. Firstly, immediately remove any pumpkin pulp that you see on the floor. You don’t want it to dry out as it would be harder to clean. 

If you have pumpkin stains on any carpeted area, there are a couple of steps you should follow to remove it:

• Use a spoon to scrape away most of the pumpkin
• Apply a carpet stain remover and leave it for a few minutes. If you do not have stain remover, mix dishwashing liquid with water and apply on the carpet using a soft cloth
• You might need to repeat a couple of times but if the stain is transferring to the cloth, it is working! Do not forget to switch to a clean section of the cloth or use a new one, so you don’t reapply the stain to the carpet. 
• If the stain is still there, apply alcohol on a cloth and start rubbing it on the stain 
• Rinse with clean cloth and clean water. 

Glitter on the carpet

Are you sewing your Halloween costume and applying glitter? Or maybe you are hosting the Halloween party in your house and you are planning on popping confetti?  Although you don’t think this would make a mess, you look at the floor later and realise it is full of glitter and confetti. 

Everyone thinks that using a vacuum cleaner is the best solution. However, we did some research and found out that the best way to deal with this is by using tape. Take a thicker one like duct tape or masking tape around your fingers with the sticky side out and pat the glitter off the floor. 

Another way to clean it is by using a lint remover. This is effective if only a small amount has fallen on the floor.  

Chocolate stains

Lots of chocolate is eaten around Halloween and little chocolaty fingerprints can end up on clothes and sofas. How do you deal with this horror story?

Here is a list of easy tips you should follow to remove chocolate stains from a variety of fabrics:

• Scrape as much chocolate as you can from the stain, but be gentle because you don’t want to grind the chocolate further into the fabric
• If possible, hold the reverse of the stain under a tab, as this would help loosen the chocolate particles and possibly clear them out. Alternative is using soda water instead of running tap water.
• Next step would be rubbing laundry detergent or liquid dishwashing detergent into the stain. Do it carefully and make sure that the detergent saturates the fabric. 
• Put the clothing in cold water for 15 minutes and gently rub it every few minutes. Keep doing this until the stain is gone. For tougher stains you might need to add more detergent.

Red wine stains on your carpet

Hosting the party means that you could find some wine stains on your carpet the following day. Do not worry as we could help you and give you advice on how to remove the stains. 

Just follow the steps below and hope that next year you are not the one hosting the event.

• If the wine hasn’t dried out, try and blot the stain with paper towel or clean cloth to remove any wine that hasn’t been absorbed yet
• Take a bowl and mix two cups of warm water with one tablespoon of white vinegar and one of dishwashing liquid
• Use a sponge to apply the mixture on the stain and continue blotting until the stain has lifted. 

Conclusion

Halloween is associated with loads of pumpkins, wine and sweets around the house, but we hope that our tips could help you go through all of these with fewer headaches and new cleaning tricks for the next celebration in your home.